by CHRIS HEDGES
Trump’s Board of Peace is an intricate play to maintain hegemony in the face of China’s rise, sparking talk of “a new world order” — but is the rules-based international order really worth saving?
This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.
As U.S. hegemony continues to dwindle, Donald Trump and his international allies are making preparations to maintain some grip on world power. One of these methods includes the “Board of Peace,” which was ostensibly created to reconstruct Gaza, but has demonstrated yet another attempt by Trump to undermine international law.
Yanis Varoufakis, the Secretary-General of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), the former Finance Minister of Greece and author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism joins host Chris Hedges to discuss what the Board of Peace really means and how it relates to Trump’s larger geopolitical goals, including one seeking to curb China’s rising influence on the world stage.
When it comes to the European Union, Varoufakis explains that European nations are “freaking out about the Board of Peace not only replacing the United Nations, but also targeting them. And this is what they get for ignoring the very clear signs that Trump was sending their way, that he’s out to get them, that he’s no longer interested in having vassals that think that they are part of a Western multilateral design… it seems to me that the Donald Trump policy is forcing his allies, so to speak, firstly to accept that the genocide will continue. Secondly, not to dare say anything about it. And third, go into these spasms of quasi-autonomy.”
As for China, Varoufakis says that Trump understands that the U.S. will have to coexist with the East Asian nation but must also to rein in the Europeans while maintaining control of the Western hemisphere, likening the tentacles of the American empire to a bicycle wheel. “The bicycle wheel has a hub in the middle and it’s got spokes… you can break one or two or three spokes and the wheel still works,” Varoufakis says. “As long as you are the hub and you negotiate with each spoke separately, you keep them separate and you don’t allow them to get together and negotiate with you collectively, then you can extend your hegemony and make a lot of money in the process.”
Chris Hedges for more